Mahjong Butterfly is the first Kindle game released by Namco Networks America. It is a crafted implementation of the game of Mahjong Solitaire with a Butterfly theme. This theme creates the goal of collecting caterpillars (i.e. matching tiles), then feeding them (more tile matching) and finally watching them hatch with the goal of getting the entire set and viewing them in your ‘Encyclopedia’ or as part of the ‘Statistics’. The game has detailed help and lovely custom images.Continue reading »

Jewels is a new matching game for Kindle from the popular publisher Mobigloo (Mahjong Solitaire, Next Puzzle Game and others). Its is described by one reviewer as ‘reminiscent of Bejeweled .. the mother of the Match-3 game craze‘. It is fully featured, with both un-timed and timed modes, and both have a top 10 scoreboard. Hints are provided, but they cost you points.

Jewel Quest Solitaire is a solitaire card game by a new-to-Kindle publisher, iWin. They’ve ported their highly rated Jewel Quest Solitaire game and it looks excellent. You can play a trial game online to get a feel for it first (and read the rave reviews). Unusually for the Kindle, its played in landscape mode.

Jigsaw Words is Amazon’s most recent free app. This joins a growing set of free Active Content games, and has been an instant success. This “picture review” shows how the app works from beginning to end.

Jigsaw Words opens with a Table of Contents. Play takes you to the Categories screen shown below. Tutorial starts the very first game. Instructions goes to the six page guide.

The categories all have a different theme and you can see in this list how many of each you have completed.

Each category has ten unique puzzles corresponding to the theme. As you finish each puzzle the titles of subsequent puzzles are shown. This adds a bit of excitement!

The first page of the guide explains the rules. The following pages explain the various keyboard shortcuts, some tips and the menu options.

Playing the game after asking for a hint. You can solve the clues in any order. Tip: Start with the easy ones first so there are less tiles to choose from for the hard clues!

Pressing the Menu key gives shows the options available while playing.

Sudoku Works is the latest of many Sudoku puzzle apps released for the Kindle. Unlike the other puzzles, however, this is an “unlimited” set of puzzles at multiple levels. The style of play in each of these games is slightly different. Not surprisingly, this one matches the Sudoku game found in the Puzzle Pack 1 also made by Oak Systems Leisure Software.

The navigation is well done. You can use the top row of letters as keys (Q=1, W=2, etc), or navigate using the 5-Way controller using the grid at the bottom right by using the Select key to move between the puzzle grid and the choice grid (see the screenshot).

Pressing the Menu key shows the many options available

The Menu key controls the many options in the game such as hiding the timer, selecting Undo, highlighting mistakes, “pencil marks”, clear all, show solution, and pause the timer. Although there are many possible puzzles, each one comes with a code on the bottom that you can share with others so they can play the same game. A thoughtful touch.

We’re not expert enough in Sudoku to judge the appropriateness of the 5 difficulty levels, but when combined with the grid sizes available of 4×4, 6×6, 8×8 and 9×9 and the millions of combinations, this is certain to satisfy most Sudoku players!

Which sale will be next? These discount sales are a regular mechanism that must be working for Amazon and the publishers, judging by their regular appearance and the way the top 100 app rank changes while they’re running. It certainly is a great time to purchase these apps at a good price.

Do you have an electronic address book somewhere, or possibly in multiple places? A few hundred contacts in Microsoft Outlook, or a collection at Yahoo Mail? Or perhaps you have a smartphone and have imported everything into GMail or Apple Mail? Contacts, a new app for Kindle, will let you quickly transfer all those contacts to your Kindle. And then, as fast as you can type, it will search and show you the matching contacts on the Kindle’s wonderful E Ink display. (Click here for import instructions.)

Contacts lets you update and enter new information directly on the Kindle and also export the data so you can load it into any other address book that supports the popular vCard format. It will let you store and edit the following fields:

Search results update as you type each letter

name

multiple addresses

multiple phone numbers

multiple emails

multiple organization and titles

nickname

a lengthy notes field

All these fields are instantly searchable as you type. The super flexible search makes the notes field particularly useful. The search is also great for answering the “What was his name again?” questions as you can search by other fields like address or the area code of the phone number.

Whether you have a set of contacts already or would like to start collecting them on your Kindle, Contacts is a great solution.

Full disclosure: the publisher of this website, A Gamz, is also the publisher of Contacts.

Task List Professional is simple to use. When you first run it, you will be shown the help pages, and then the “main page” which is a list of your tasks. From there you can start typing to create a new task, or use the 5-Way controller to move to a specific task and then select it to view the details or modify them.

Each task has a:

title

due date

priority

description

completed checkbox

In the summary “main page” you can sort by Name, Due Date, Priority and Status. You can also Search for a task containing a word. There are various shortcut keys to speed navigation, and abbreviated help for each page.

You can also copy tasks from your Kindle to your computer by plugging it in via USB and following their instructions. Very nice for backing up or creating or modifying tasks on your computer.

We haven’t had a chance to play it yet, as by its very nature it will take an estimated 12-15 hours to play, but it looks like another fantastic take on the world of interactive fiction and will add to the several titles already available for Kindle. See our other reviews of Deathtrap Dungeon, Inheritance and Affairs of the Court for more interactive fiction fun for Kindle.

Mini Sudoku is essentially the same thing as ordinary Sudoku, just on a smaller scale. As the description says “Mini Sudoku is regular Sudoku played on a smaller grid; but that doesn’t mean that they’re all easy!”

Regular Sudoku is played on a 9×9 grid broken up into 3×3 boxes, but Mini Soduku is played on a 6×6 grid broken up into 2×3 boxes. Only numbers 1 through 6 are used, but all other regular Sudoku rules apply.

Jigsaw is a similar concept as standard Sudoku, just set up a little differently. Rather than having the cells broken up into 3×3 boxes, the cells are broken up into irregular shapes, making the game a little more difficult.

Both games include 100 puzzles broken up into 4 different difficulties: Gentle, Moderate, Tough, and Diabolical. They also come equipped with a Pencil Marks feature, which allows you to make notes in each cell, as well as an Auto Pencil feature which automatically enters notes for you. In addition, both have an Auto Check tool that highlights incorrect guesses as you play.